Reproductive Politics in India

Transnational surrogacy parenthood is on the rise. For example, in the United States, the practice has been legalized in several states, while in India state sponsored “medical tourism” has established nearly three thousand surrogacy clinics.

This volume demonstrates the outcome of a considerable evolutionary search for the improved human condition. This book thoroughly examines fundamental aspects of women`s health focusing on environmental, social, and age factors. Esteemed contributors from various disciplines present critical analyses and evidence-based insights on topics such as reproductive and sexual health, menstruation, women’s and maternal diseases, healthcare access, gender-based violence, and systemic inequalities.

This book is the first to bring together an interdisciplinary collection of essays on surrogacy and egg donation from three socially, legally and culturally distinct countries - India, Israel and Germany. It presents contributions from experts in the field of social and cultural sciences, bioethics, law as well as psychology and provides critical-reflective comparative analysis of the socio-ethical factors shaping surrogacy and egg donation practices across these three countries. This book highlights the importance of a comparative perspective to ‘make sense’ of controversies and transitions in this highly contested area of artificial reproductive technologies. It demonstrates how local developments cannot be isolated from global events and vice versa. Therefore, this volume can be used as a standard reference for anyone seeking to understand surrogacy and egg donation from a macro-perspective in the next decade.

This book highlights historical and current perspectives on population issues in the Bengali-speaking states of India (i.e., West Bengal, Tripura, Assam) and Bangladesh and explores three core population dynamics: fertility, mortality–morbidity and development. Furthermore, it presents a selection of revealing cases from area-specific micro-studies, mainly conducted in West Bengal and Bangladesh.